Loving God,

You created us to live with the birds of the air,

animals of the land and sea, trees, flowers,

plants and our brothers and sisters around the

world.

Open our minds, touch our hearts and guide us

in ways of care and concern for all you have

gifted us.

We ask this in Your name.

Amen.

Dear Friends,

The above prayer and focus is from 2 White's assembly, shared with us on Monday. Their central idea and lines of inquiry are as follows: 

We have been exploring the central idea, Earth’s sustainability is essential. Through the lines of, Earth's place in the solar system, The impact of human activity, and Our responsibility to be stewards of Earth’s resources.

The Earth has all the things we need to live, but we need to take care of the Earth so it can keep giving us what we need. Caring for the environment means doing things that will keep the Earth healthy. 

 It’s up to us to do what we can to care for the environment. There are plenty of ways to be green and make choices that help our planet, and you don’t have to be a grown-up to make eco-friendly choices!

It’s important to conserve the Earth’s natural resources, so people living decades after us can still enjoy living on our amazing planet!

Last Friday we were so incredibly blessed to have such a wonderful day of celebrating the gifts of mothers in our community.  The day began with a Mother's day breakfast, the coffee cart being a welcome addition! This was followed by a beautiful prayer assembly, led by Year 1, and our traditional Mother's Day stall. Thank you to all in our community who helped facilitate such a great day for our community.

It was also a delight to see so many at our athletics carnival last Thursday at Woden Park.  Thank you to Ben Davis, our staff and parent volunteers who helped the smooth running of such a well organised event.  Many parents commented on the great engagement of children throughout the day and the superb weather! 

This year we continue to ensure all our policies and school procedures are updated and compliant;  throughout the year, we will share relevant documents with our School Board and wider community, through this newsletter.  We also have on our website, a link to all Catholic Education Policies and links to specific school based policies.  Please see below links to our Pastoral Care and Well Being Policy and school based procedures.   I am very happy for any feed back or clarification about these links or any of our CE policies, that can be accessed on our school website.

Pastoral Care and Wellbeing Policy

Pastoral Care and Student Wellbeing Procedures

As we approach the colder weather, we are naturally seeing an increase in colds and flu.  COVID is still very present in the ACT community also-  please note we have many RAT tests available for families at our front office.  I encourage families who would like some of these to please come and collect these from the front office, or notify us via email and we can send tests home in school bags.

Have a wonderful weekend and a peace-filled week ahead with your beautiful families. 

Philippa 

Global School Partners

Don't forget 'FOOTY FEVER' will be celebrated TOMORROW 19th MAY. Students are welcome to wear their favourite footy colours or a footy jersey of their choice. Please remember to bring your gold coin donation.

Stay and Play

Stay and Play is a playgroup for pre-preschoolers and their carer each Wednesday in school term 9am-10am in the ELC Adventure Garden (weather permitting). All families and the broader community are welcome to attend.

Our Year 6 Leaders have continued to demonstrate their leadership skills by engaging in a range of service activities throughout our community. Below are some of the ways our learners have contributed to creating a culture of action:

Green House

This term, Green House has been working on fitness videos to keep the younger students entertained and healthy. We hope they can utilise these during their brain breaks or on rainy days. These videos have been in the making for quite some time. As the fitness group, we assist in distributing and maintaining all the sports equipment in good condition and manage the sports shed, which operates on a roster system. Every Green House leader is assigned at least one day per week to take care of the sports equipment, ensuring a fair roster for everyone. We hope the Holy Trinity Community benefits from our work.

Red House

Over the past seven weeks, Red House leaders have had the privilege of celebrating many of the remarkable aspects of the school. We have been exploring ways to share with our school many of the incredible events and experiences our members engage with that may otherwise go unnoticed. We hope that other Year 6 Leaders continue our focus and are able to share some of these experiences in future school newsletters.

Blue House

This term, the Light Blue House has been honoured to participate in the Holy Trinity’s school community by raising the flags out the front of the school every morning in tribute to all Australians. We have also enjoyed assisting our teachers by delivering their note bags and conveying messages for them. We see these acts of service as an opportunity to demonstrate leadership and our identity as open-minded, caring, and principled learners through actions that help foster a sense of belonging for all members of the school community.

As the Dark Blue House, we have contributed to the sustainability of our Holy Trinity community. We have done this by raising awareness of environmentally friendly ways we can help our environment. We created Earth Day bags to encourage younger students to be more sustainable. We made posters for our school bins to help younger students place their rubbish in the correct bins. In conclusion, we believe it is vital that we make our school more eco-friendly and an environmentally effective place for our community to come together.

Gold House

In recent weeks, Gold House has raised over a thousand dollars for charity. As part of the Christian Outreach group, we have conducted the Easter raffle, managed Caritas boxes, and organised Dunk The Teachers Day. Our school raised money to support Caritas and its community. We support Caritas because we recognise that we have a good education, and we want to share it with others by giving them the same opportunity. We have become more passionate about fundraising, and this has been extremely beneficial for us as we have learnt more about helping others and prioritising their needs before our own. We hope we can pass this knowledge on to the next group of Year 6 Leaders.

Reconciliation Week 2023

National Reconciliation Week – 27 May to 3 June – is a time for all Australians to learn about our shared histories, cultures, and achievements, and to explore how each of us can contribute to achieving reconciliation in Australia. For a short video click on Reconciliation Week click here.

To see what events are happening in our community click here.

Holy Trinity Reconciliation Action Plan (RAP)

The RAP for Holy Trinity includes actions and deliverables promoting and sustaining reconciliation in the classroom, around the school and in our community. Our RAP has been published for 2023 and can be viewed here.

It was finally time for the event of the year,
Spike couldn’t believe it—
THE GREAT RACE was here!
The other sloths said it couldn’t be done,
but Spike didn’t care, she was ready to run!

Next Wednesday, 24^th May, Holy Trinity will once again participate in the National Simultaneous Storytime along with thousands of schools and libraries throughout Australia and beyond. The NSS is an annual event to promote the value of reading and literacy. In 2022 there were over two million participants involved in this event.

This year the book selected is…The Speedy Sloth, written by Rebecca Young and illustrated by Heath McKenzie. The Speedy Sloth is an inspiring story that celebrates all winners...especially those who don't come first.

Children and staff are invited to wear their favourite active wear on the day, a sweat band might be fun as well. Small stuffed toys are also welcome to come to the event. Alternatively, just wear sport uniforms.

We will watch the livestreamed reading together, have some fun and then complete a range of activities based on the book back in the classrooms.

Finally, if you happen to have a toy sloth at home could I please borrow a few of these to make a display of sloths.

Happy Days, Kate M x

Important Dates - Linked to School Calendar

*Please note that dates can change through out the term

Parents and carers play an essential role in shaping their children’s understanding of consent. Research shows that conversations about consent at early ages impacts the skills and behaviour children need as they grow up. This weeks reading from Happy Families discusses different aspects of consent we can be talking to our children about from an early age.